When Olga Kennard began collecting crystal structures in 1965, she believed that the collective use of experimental data would lead to the discovery of new knowledge which transcends the results of individual experiments. I hope she will be proud of how the collection she began is playing such a pivotal role in chemistry research world-wide in the 21st century. I am certainly looking forward to hearing her talk at our CSD50 symposium this week.
Crystallography is a unique discipline in that crystallographers share their research results as a matter of course. Since the inception of the CSD in 1965, the CCDC has fully played its role in sharing this data and we are able to make the entire collection of over 780,000 entries available to all scientists across the world. As well as helping you ensure your research results are made accessible to everyone, we’ve developed analysis software that enables experimental data to be turned into insights that really help scientists make informed decisions. Today, the CSD is used in virtually every chemistry laboratory - both academic and industrial – for primary research, drug discovery and development, materials science and more.